Symptoms of Rejection

When we’re sick, we need a doctor, don’t we? When I fell in Jerusalem in 2014, I had to go to the emergency room and have my wrist set in a plaster cast. When I got home, I had to have further treatment in surgery. That started a 12-week process of physical therapy to get most of my use back. But I have it.

It’s been that way for me with rejection issues as well. I went for years not even knowing what my problem was. Then, God started to heal me. He did it through His love and the love of other people in my life. Finally, He showed me what the problem was. Before that, I’d only known there was something wrong, but I didn’t know what.

In late 2003, I began to write down what I knew then about rejection. I’ll use what I knew then, plus current information gleaned from other sources.

My symptoms were: anger, jealousy, envy, rebellion against authority, easily wounded, abandonment, fear, pride/false humility, delusions of grandeur, and selfish ambition. Wow. The “clinical” list follows – from Wikipedia – Avoidant Personality Disorder.

• Hypersensitivity to rejection/criticism
• Self-imposed social isolation
• Extreme shyness or anxiety in social situations, though the person feels a strong desire for close relationships^[12]
• Avoids physical contact because it has been associated with an unpleasant or painful stimulus
• Feelings of inadequacy
• Severe low self-esteem
• Self-loathing
• Mistrust of others
• Emotional distancing related to intimacy
• Highly self-conscious
• Self-critical about their problems relating to others
• Problems in occupational functioning
• Lonely self-perception, although others may find the relationship with them meaningful
• Feeling inferior to others
• In some extreme cases, agoraphobia
• Uses fantasy as a form of escapism to interrupt painful thoughts^[13][14]

There are some similarities to the lists. Can you find them?